


Legends Never Die

by theHunter_and_theNinja



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Protective Daryl Dixon, Teenager!Judith Grimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-06 23:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20515184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theHunter_and_theNinja/pseuds/theHunter_and_theNinja
Summary: It's Judith's first official run for Hilltop. They were trapped and had no choice but to hide beneath the outcropping of the cliff, clinging precariously to the side. When their position is compromised, it forces Daryl to make a heartbreaking decision.





	1. Clinging to Life

Daryl groaned from the strain on his arm as he grasped desperately at the thick root he was holding onto as he and Judith dangled over the edge of a cliff. She had both her hands holding onto him while her feet rested on a small, unstable sliver of earth jetting out from the side of the cliff. They’d been cut off by a large herd of walkers on their way back and had been backed into a corner. Out of desperation, they’d carefully lowered themselves slowly over the edge of the cliff in hopes that the walkers would simply walk right off it and then they could climb back up.

They’d been sent out to find some salvage for the blacksmith to mold into various things the communities need. The carriages need new hitches, the horses need new shoes, and so much more. Judith had begged him for days to take her with him. It was only after she’d reminded him of his promise to take her with him when she turned 18 that he agreed. Judith had no idea that Daryl had picked this area because he knew--or thought he knew--that it was safe.

Daryl had thought that he was very familiar with this area since he and Paul had been here many times. This was kind of their “place” and they often came here whenever they needed to just relax. Paul was temporary leader of Hilltop right now since Maggie was getting ready to deliver her and Glenn’s third child in the next day or two. That left Daryl as the best runner for the job and Judith as a very eager and talented runner-in-training.

She’d been absolutely buzzing with excitement when they’d left just a few days ago. She’d spent hours cleaning her father’s gun, which Daryl had found on the bank of the river a few days after the explosion, and the crossbow Daryl had gifted her when she turned 14. He’d been so proud of her when she’d hit the target every single time the first time he’d taken her out to learn how to shoot it. He hadn’t seen her that happy about anything in a long time; not since before her mother died, actually.

* * *

Michonne had been out on a run many years ago on which she’d been severely wounded. She and her running partner, David, had encountered a rather nasty group of people a couple hours outside Alexandria. They’d tried to reason with the group, offering them sanctuary, but they were violent people who’d become accustomed to doing whatever they pleased and they attacked Michonne and David.

Together, Michonne and David worked together to take down each member of the group, but at great cost. David was shot in the head by the leader of the group just seconds before Michonne’s katana took his head off. The distraction of seeing David go down had resulted in the last member getting a critical shot in on Michonne, running his own blade through her side. It hadn’t killed her instantly and the man’s cockiness had enabled her to find him with a bullet to the head fired from over her shoulder.

She took the outer shirt off of David and wrapped it around her middle to help hold the knife cut together. She ended the turning process before it could start for David and for all expect two of the adversaries. Instead, she chopped off the lower part of their jaws and used some of the rope she and David had found to tie them up. She was desperate to get home and her best shot was to remain unnoticed by walkers on her way back to her vehicle. It only took them about fifteen minutes to turn, much to her relief, and they were off.

She was thankful that she’d done that when they ran into a small group of walkers near her car and she was able to just limp around them. She dispatched them only when she was standing right next to her car. She got in and drove back to Alexandria as fast as she could. She passed out behind the wheel as soon as she’d put it in park inside Alexandria’s gates.

Daryl had been there when a couple Alexandrians had pulled an unconscious Michonne from the car. The first thing he saw was the blood on her side and the second thing he saw was her children running towards her. He’d immediately run forward to stop them, knowing that they needed to get Michonne to the infirmary as fast as possible and couldn’t do that with two children trying to get to their mother. Judith and RJ had called out for their mother, especially RJ who’d only cried louder when his mother didn’t respond to him.

Michonne, at first, had recovered quite well regaining consciousness after about two days and multiple blood transfusions. She’d told everyone what happened and her children had spent most of their time by her sides. By day four, however, she’d taken a turn for the worse when her wound became infected because of the rusty quality of the blade she’d been stabbed with. Her fever rose steadily over the next 24 hours, resulting in Daryl having to help Siddiq get her into an ice bath in an attempt to lower her temperature. It hadn’t worked and she’d passed away from the infection only 48 hours after being infected.

Judith, age 9, and RJ, age 5, had now lost both their parents and nobody really knew what to do with them. Daryl found himself stepping in immediately to take over raising them, without even consulting Paul about it. They were his niece and nephew, he couldn’t just turn them over to be raised by anyone. He felt like it was his responsibility to raise them since he was one of the only people left who’d known both their mother and father really well. At least, one of the only ones who didn’t already have children of their own.

Paul had accepted them into their family without any hesitation at all. Daryl had given them both a choice to stay in Alexandria and Paul and Daryl would move here there or move in with them at Hilltop. Judith wanted to leave the bad memories behind and go elsewhere. After losing everyone except her younger brother, she felt like Alexandria was bad luck for her. RJ was too young to understand totally what his sister was feeling, but agreed with her anyway. Daryl had taken them home with him only a few days after Michonne’s funeral.

The two were never allowed to call Daryl any variation of dad, because he wanted them to remember that he wasn’t their real father. He knew that was hard for RJ, but hearing the title of dad directed at him from one of Rick’s children was too much for him. RJ had only called him that a couple of times and each time Daryl had gently reminded him that he wasn’t his father. Paul didn’t allow them to call him anything like that either, insisting that he was just Paul. The last time Daryl told him not to call him dad, RJ was eight and had cried for hours screaming for his father.

“It’s not fair!” he’d cried, “Why does everyone else have someone to call dad, but me and Judy?”

His cries had brought Daryl to tears, but he hadn’t allowed himself to cave. He might be raising them, but he wasn’t their father. Judith had been the one to calm RJ down by telling him what she remembered of her father. Daryl chimed in with his own stories and soon he found himself telling them all about their father, Rick Grimes.

From that day on RJ held onto this idyllic version of his father which sometimes caused Daryl to wince since it wasn’t always accurate, but he couldn’t bear to ruin the only image of his father that RJ had. It sometimes led him to be too arrogant or make decisions for other people. Whenever Daryl caught the behavior, however, he was quick to put RJ in his place. The now 15 year old hadn’t shown those qualities in a long time, which Daryl was immensely grateful for. Those were a few traits of Rick’s that Daryl didn’t want RJ to inherit.

* * *

The sounds of the dead brought Daryl back to the present, ripping him away from reminiscing about his family. He could feel his shoulder starting to ache from the all the weight on it. He looked like fucking spider-man hanging here like this and it was killing his back, legs, hips, his whole body really. He was nearing fifty-five and his body wasn’t what it used to be. Right now, all he was focusing on was Judith clinging to his left arm and balancing on a tiny outcropping below him. Daryl knew that if one of them fell, the fall probably wouldn’t kill them, it wasn’t that far down, but they’d probably break something and not be able to run.

He’d fought off some of the closer dead while she’d climbed down over the ledge first. He hadn’t liked the idea of her going first, but he also didn’t want to throw her up against almost twenty walkers while he climbed to safety.

“Daryl?” came Judith’s timid voice from below him, “I’m scared.”

Daryl looked down at her, “You’re going to be just fine. We just have to hold out long enough for them to pass over the cliff.”

He felt her clutch his arm tighter and Daryl dug his heels deeper into the wall of the cliff. No matter what was about to happen, he was going to do everything he could to ensure Judith’s safety. He’s been protecting her since the day she was born and he wasn’t about to stop now. 

Sure enough, just like he’d hoped, the dead started to walk right off the cliff and plunge down onto the ground below. They watched as most of them landed headfirst ending their time as walkers upon impact, but some survived the fall and turned their attention back to them when the ground beneath Judith’s feet started to give way.

The vibrations from so many walkers hitting the ground below must’ve finished off the already weakened foothold she was standing on. That combined with the weight of the walkers above them and her own weight, the ledge just wasn’t stable enough. Daryl saw and heard it happening and tightened his grip on her. He made a resolve in that moment, if she fell, so did he. He knew he’d never be able to survive this one, so dying with was the only option if it came to that. He is going to do everything in his power to prevent that outcome from ever occurring first.

Judith’s heart jumped into her throat as she felt the ground beneath her crack and fall away.

“Dad!” she yelled not thinking, “Hold onto me!”

The word gave Daryl pause, it was strange for her to think about Rick coming to save her now. She knew that he was dead. Then it hit him, she wasn’t calling out for Rick, she was calling out to him. He knew now really wasn’t the time, but it was out of his mouth before he could think about it.

“I’m your uncle, not your father,” he reminded her, but still held onto her with all he had even when the pull on his shoulder became unbearable.

“Ugh!” he heard her groan, “I know that you’re not my father. I know that Rick is my father, but that doesn’t make him my dad.”

Now Daryl was confused, “Father and dad mean the same thing.”

“No they don’t,” Judith argued, scrambling to get purchase with her feet, “A father helps conceive you, a dad raises you.”

Daryl shook his head slightly, he was starting to sweat profusely and his shoulder felt like it was going to break at any moment. He could hear the thick root above him creak with effort and he swallowed nervously.

“Rick did raise you,” Daryl argued, “At least until he died.”

“No, he didn’t,” she snapped back at him, finally gaining a little purchase against the cliff.

Daryl breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the weight on his shoulder lift a bit when she found new footholds.

“This really isn’t the time...” he tried, but she cut him off.

Leave it to the daughter of Rick Grimes to have a heart-to-heart with him while there was a waterfall of walkers falling all around them, blocking out the sun and making it hard to hear.

“It’s the perfect time, we could die today and I’m sick of you not wanting to admit the role you’ve played in my life. You’ve raised me from the day I was born!” she told him.

He went to protest, but she stopped him before he could even start.

“Don’t lie to me, I’ve heard the stories.”

“What stories?” Daryl was deeply confused about this whole argument.

“I’ve talked to Maggie, Glenn, and Carol about what you told me about my father and what I remember. Rick is my father, but you are my dad,” she insisted, “You were the first person to feed me when I was born because my father was too far gone after the death of my birth mother. You taught me to shoot while my father was off pretending to be in charge of all the communities even though they’ve always been independent. You were the one to tell me that my mother had died and you held me while I cried. You comforted me when my first boyfriend broke my heart. You are my Dad and it’s time you accepted it.”

Daryl didn’t know what to say to that, so he just kept quiet because he could tell she had more to say.

“Did you know that RJ calls you Dad and Paul Pa whenever you’re not around. He doesn’t want to upset you, but to him you’re the only dad he’s ever known. I knew our father, but he wasn’t even born when our father died. RJ sees you as his dad because you two raised him. You’ve shown us unconditional love and support since the day we came to you. If that’s not a dad, I don’t know what is.”

Daryl wanted to cry right now. He’d been so afraid of them forgetting who their father was that he’d failed to realize that they never would. All they wanted was for him to be their Dad because Rick was around to be it for them. He’d been so stupid and he wished he’d seen it sooner.

“From what I remember, my father loved me deeply, but he didn’t spend a lot of time raising me. Michonne and my brother are who I really remember being with. I think that my father spent a little too much time being in charge of Alexandria to really raise me. I remember you playing games with me while Rick held meetings about buildings. I remember you bringing me back painting and drawing supplies every time you went on a run while Rick always just came back with what we needed. You’ve been my dad since the day I was born, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” he asked her feeling tears well up in his eyes.

“Because we love you and we didn’t want to upset you. We both know how much our father meant to you and we didn’t want you to think we were replacing him with you,” she explained, “I believe that my father was a great man, but I also think that it resulted in him having very little time for his family. He spent the last four months of his life building that damn bridge. I hadn’t seen him for weeks when he died. Maggie hesitantly confirmed that for me when I asked her about it.”

Now Daryl found himself thinking back to Rick and his child rearing practices. It was true that Rick was busy as a leader, but he’d never realized the effect that could have on the perception of a child. It was also true that he’d found himself playing babysitter for Rick sometimes multiple times a week when Rick was too busy and Michonne needed a break. He never doubted Rick’s love for his kids, but now he was questioning his time management skills.

“I’m so sorry,” Daryl called down to hear over the groans of the dead, “I shouldn’t have taken that from you.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, “Can I call you that now?”

“Yeah,” Daryl said smiling down at her, “yeah you can. We’ll tell your brother what we talked about here today when we get back. If he still wants to call me that, I won’t stop him.”

Judith, his daughter, smiled brightly up at him, “Thanks, Dad, I love... Ahhh!”

Her sentence ended with a scream as a sudden weight grabbed onto her.

“Judith!” Daryl shouted desperately, but there was nothing he could do.

Somehow, one had fallen in such a way that it had managed to catch onto her leg, pulling her leg free from her foothold.

“Hold on!” she yelled up to him and Daryl braced himself to take on her weight.

He groaned in pain when she kicked off the wall with her other foot to kick the walker holding onto her. She slammed her free foot against her ankle, breaking the fragile bones of the walker making it fall. In the panic, however, she’d lost where her footholds were and she was having trouble finding them. She glanced up at her Dad noting the pain etched onto his face. It made her feel incredibly guilty. Her weight was hurting him immensely and if she let go, it would help him.

Almost like he could read her mind, more likely her expression, he called down to her.

“Don’t you dare let go,” he grit out, “Don’t you fucking dare!”

“I can’t find any footholds,” she cried out desperately, “I’m going to kill both of us if you don’t let me go.”

The walkers had stopped falling over the edge of the cliff, but now there was a sizable group down below gnashing their teeth at them. 

“I’m not letting you go. If you die here, so do I no matter what. I’d never be able to survive losing you,” he admitted to her.

She could see the love in his eyes and she realized him letting her go was never going to happen. He’d finally accepted the role he’s had all her life and it meant that it came with an even stronger will to protect her. 

“Can you push off?” he asked, “Like, swing out?”

She wasn’t sure what he was planning, but she trusted him completely in everything, she always had.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, put your feet against the cliff as best you can and push off,” he commanded her, “Then repeat, I’ll handle the rest.”

Daryl was desperate for this to work, he could feel his arm starting to give away as he ran out of strength. He could practically hear his shoulders creaking under the pressure of holding onto his daughter.

She quickly brought her feet up and pushed off, landing back and pushing off again. Suddenly, with no warning at all, Daryl pushed off the wall as hard as he could at the same time as her giving her more momentum. He pushed up and over with his arm forcing her to arc in the air and, much to her shock, he let her hands go wrenching his arm out of her grasp. She screamed out thinking he’d simply lost his grip only to land hard on the top of the cliff. She laid there stunned for a moment before pulling herself together and getting up. Her legs shook slightly and she collapsed back onto her knees.

“Judith?!?” she heard her Dad call from over the cliff.

She turned around and crawled over to the edge and looked down.

“It worked!” she assured him, “I’m safe. It’s your turn now.”

She could sense that something was deeply wrong as she gazed down at the man who’d become her Dad.

“Dad?” she called down to him.

Just as he went to respond, a loud crack was heard and the root he was holding onto split horizontally down the middle.

“Dad!” she screamed, her eyes going wide as she watched him try to keep his grip.

He was struggling quite hard, but it wasn’t enough. Getting her up here must’ve drained him completely. She laid down flat on her stomach and reached her hand down to him.

“Take my hand,” she pleaded with him, “Please, I can’t lose you.”

Daryl looked at his daughter's hand hanging down in front of him. He was afraid of pulling her over the edge again, but he knew that she’d never forgive him if he didn’t at least allow her to try to save him. For him, however, his job was already done. He’d finally admitted to himself that Judith and RJ are his children and he’d saved Judith today.

He put the last of his strength into pulling himself up far enough to reach his daughter’s hand. He clutched her hand tightly, but he quickly noticed that she was having great difficulty staying there while supporting his weight. It with a heavy heart, that he let go of her hand.

“Dad, what are you doing?” she cried out desperately, her eyes watering.

“I can’t take you down with me. I’m your Dad, it’s my job to protect you and if I let you try to do this, you’ll fall with me,” he explained.

“I won’t, I promise,” she tried as heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Yes you will, I saw you slipping,” he stopped her, “I can’t take the chance, I love you too much.”

“I love you too much to lose you,” she pleaded with him.

“As long as you remember me, I’ll never truly be gone,” he told her in an effort to comfort her, “Just like how your mother and father are still with you. The people who die stay with you as long as you remember how much they loved you, because I don’t believe death will ever be able to stop me loving you, your brother, and my husband.”

Judith was full on crying now, tears raining down onto her father below her creating wet patches on his dirty shirt.

“When you get home,” he panted out, he was just about out of time and he knew it, “make sure RJ knows that I consider him my son and tell him and Paul that I love them deeply.”

“Dad...” she whimpered, her eyes rimmed red and throat dry.

“I love you, Judith,” he said smiling up at her, crying himself, “my daughter... good-bye.”

And with that, he let himself fall.

He heard his daughter scream as he fell, but there was nothing he could do now. He reached over and pulled his gun from his holster, quickly placing it under his chin. His last thoughts were of his family as he pulled the trigger seconds before he reached the horde of walkers beneath him.


	2. The After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I get it. Y'all don't like reading about Daryl dying, but the lack of response I got on the previous chapter was kinda hurtful and made me not want to finish this.
> 
> I did it anyway, for myself, because I liked the concept when I first thought of it.
> 
> Enjoy

Judith screamed out in agony when she heard the gunshot and the sounds of flesh ripping and bones breaking. She knew that the gunshot had been Daryl stopping the process himself before the walkers could consume him. He’d always said that he’d never let himself become a walker if he could help it because he never wanted one of his family members to have to put him down.

She clutched at her chest, she couldn’t breathe. It felt like somebody had just reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. She scrambled back from the edge unable to watch the walkers below rip her Dad to shreds with their teeth and devour him. As she mourned her Dad and wept into the ground, her mind drifting to some of her fondest memories of the man who’d become her Dad.

She saw images of him teaching her to hunt, showing her how to recognize a new trail from an old one; even how to recognize one at all. He was with her the day she downed her first buck, it had taken both of them to haul it back to Hilltop. She remembered the first time the communities had celebrated Christmas and Daryl going out of his way to find her high quality art supplies that hadn’t gone bad. She saw them fishing together at the lake just an hour from Hilltop. She remembered one particularly memorable day when she’d pushed him into the lake and they proceeded to have a splash fight. That memory led her to the snowball fight she’d been apart of when her mother was still alive.

She reminisced about the day he taught her to drive and she’d nearly crashed the car into a tree when she tried to back up. She also remembered how fun it was learning how to ride his precious bike. She’d actually been better at riding the bike than driving the car which he’d found hilarious since Rick had been downright horrible at riding a bike.

She stayed there, huddled in a heap on the grassy ground for a long time. She could no longer hear the gnashing of teeth or gushing of blood coming from below. She knew that meant they’d probably finished their meal and would now be much slower from the added weight of her Dad’s flesh in their bellies.

She walked to the edge of the cliff and peered down, cautious of her footing. Below she could see the mangled corpse of her Dad lying in the middle of a ring of walker who were still somewhat grabbing at whatever remained of his body. She walked away and back into the forest to where they’d hidden their bows and grabbed both of them before going back to the cliff. She pointed her bow down over the edge and fired an arrow into the skulls of each remaining walker.

It took her an hour to find a way down into the ravine that was relatively safe. She knew she couldn’t get his body on her own, she’d have to come back with more people for that, but she wanted to get his knives and other important items now just in case someone else came along and stolen before she could return for his body. She felt herself wanted to break down all over again at the close-up sight of what was left of her Dad, but she forced herself to stay calm. She was successful until she was right up next to him.

Part of his face was still intact, much to her surprise, and it was unsettling as his one remaining eye stared up at the sky unseeing. She could see his ribs as all the flesh that normally covered them had been stripped away along with most of his clothes. Could see that his vest was still intact, but it would be impossible to get on her own. There were huge chunks missing from his legs and clumps of hair had been pulled out of his head leaving bloody bald in spots all over his scalp. The most unsettling thing, however, was all the blood on the ground.

She was standing in her Dad’s blood and when she collapsed she was now sitting in it. It was sticky and disgusting, but she couldn’t bring herself to care too much. Growing up in this world, she’d become pretty desensitized to horrifying sights and blood. She leaned in and ran her fingers over the intact side of her Dad’s face, crying the whole time, her tears mixing with his drying blood. She could feel his stubble under her fingertips, but his skin had gone cold and his eye no longer had that glint of life in them that she was so used to. She reached her shaking hand up slowly to close his eye out of respect before leaning down to place a kiss on the corner of the eye. It was so cold against her lips and it only made her cry harder.

All she wanted to do was pull his body against her, but she knew her hands would probably just go right down to the bone and that idea grossed her out. There was a line she wasn’t able to cross when it came to stuff like this. She shook her head to clear it and moved on down his body. His belt had been pulled away from his hips by the walkers so she had to search through the dead walkers and blood a bit to find her father’s favorite knives.

It took her even more looking to find his wedding ring, something she wasn’t even sure that she was going to be able to find, but she did. Finally, the last item she wanted to find was the necklace she’d given to him when she was younger. It was a simple pair of golden angel wings decorated with silver and a silver crossbow. He’s strung it onto a thin strip of leather and worn it every day since. She’d found it embedded deep into her Dad’s bloody neck making her gag when she reached into his neck to pull it up. She used the knife to cut the leather strap since it was soaked in blood and unwearable anyway.

She stood up, noting how much blood she was covered in but ignoring it for now, and left the ravine. She carefully marked her way back to it so that she could come back to retrieve his body. She felt numb as she made her way back to the car. She climbed into the driver's seat and just stayed there for a while, feeling horribly guilty. Her Dad had just died to save her. She placed her Dad’s stuff in the seat next to her, where her Dad should be sitting, but wasn’t and never would again. His crossbow leaned against her on the floor and his blood covered wedding ring did its best to glint in the sun. She could feel tears running down her face, but all she felt was regret and guilt.

She shook her head, started the car up and headed back home.

* * *

Paul knew something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones, but he couldn’t place what it was. Daryl and Judith weren’t expect back until tomorrow, so he shouldn't be worrying about them just yet. But this hole in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t go away. He’d even forced Maggie to get a check-up from Siddiq just in case it was about her. She was concerned about him and how uneasy and jumpy he was acting. Even RJ had noticed that Paul was acting strange.

“Pa,” RJ asked, “what’s wrong?”

Daryl had no idea that he let RJ called him that. He’d stopped RJ from doing it for a long while, but eventually caved after overhearing a conversation between RJ and Judith about the issue one night many years ago. 

“I’m not sure,” Paul admitted, “I’ve just got a really bad feeling.”

“Do you think it’s about Dad and Judith?”

“I hope not, I don’t think I could handle anything happening to either one of them.”

The sounds of shouting pulled both of their attention to the courtyard. They both quickly made their way to a window of Maggie’s office, temporarily Paul’s office, to see what was going on. Much to their surprise, Daryl and Judith’s car came rolling through the gate. That surprise quickly turned to horror as they saw Judith emerge from the car alone and drenched in blood. Without saying a word to each other, the two dash out of the office and down the stairs.

“Out of my way!” Paul shouted at the crowd forming around the car.

He stopped short at the sight of his daughter covered in dried blood clutching Daryl’s personal effects, including his wedding ring and knives.

“Judith,” RJ spoke softly, “where’s Dad?”

Tears welled in her eyes as she revealed the truth Paul wasn’t sure he’d survive, but had known was coming the minute he saw her alone.

“He’s dead.”

Everyone gasped in shock. Most people thought of the hunter as indestructible, unkillable even. Some people had joked that he was an immortal who’d come down to help them survive this shit world. Paul could feel himself waver, but he hadn’t realized he’d collapse until he felt a set of strong arms around him, trying to lower him gently to the ground. He heard RJ yell his disbelief behind him and he desperately wanted to go to his son, but his limbs didn’t seem to be working.

“What happened?” Glenn choked out from where he was holding Paul, tearing forming in the corners of his eyes.

“There was a herd and we got trapped on a cliff. We lowered ourselves down beneath the ledge to let all the walkers fall off the cliff, but it was unstable and the ground I was standing on fell away. Daryl used everything he had in him to get me to safety, but I couldn’t save him. He fell,” she recounted quietly, her voice raw from all the screaming and crying she’d done.

“He managed to shoot himself in the head before he hit the horde gathered at the bottom of the ravine of the walkers who’d survived the fall. After they were done, I climbed down and got his stuff. I didn’t want anyone to steal it before we could collect his body.”

Paul wanted to scream and yell and kill every walker on the planet, but he still couldn’t move. He felt numb from shock and grief. He saw his son collapsed into Carol’s arms who was also crying. He watched as she lowered them to their knees. RJ’s sobs filled the air around them making Paul already shattered heart ache. He looked over at Judith and felt a surge of strength to get to her. She’d gone through this all by herself and she was still standing. She must be the strongest woman on the planet.

He pushed himself up, off the ground and made his way over to his daughter and pulled her close. She let herself lean against him and they wept together. The entire community was weeping over the loss of one of their kindest and strongest members. Daryl had been deeply loved and respected across all the communities, even Oceanside. Paul knew everyone was going to be devastated by the news of the hunter’s passing.

He’d been such a sturdy pillar of the communities for so long that not many people remember what life was like without him. All of the kids in every community looked up to him and many aspired to be just like him when they were older. Everything he did was, at some point, copied by kids all over the four communities. He’d even quit smoking to ensure that nobody was influenced by him to take up the harmful habit.

Silence reigned over the Hilltop community as they all tried to process what Judith had told them. RJ had fallen quiet as he laid in Carol’s arms. Paul hugged his daughter tight to his body before pushing away from her.

He took a deep breath before addressing the community, “We’ll send a team out in an hour to retrieve his body. I don’t want him out there for much longer, he needs to be brought home. Volunteers only meet at the gates in half an hour. Some of them will go get Daryl, others will need to ride to the other communities and tell them what has happened. We’ll hold a ceremony for him in two days.”

People started to depart, some to mourn, some to prepare for the large amount of guests they were sure to get, some to get their weapons for the run. Paul walked his daughter to Siddiq so that he could check her over despite her protests saying she was fine. It was only after Siddiq had cleared her that Paul allowed her to come back into Barrington to clean up.

She was quiet as she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. It took her forever to scrape all of the dried blood off of her skin and wash it out of her hair. When she had finished bathing, she just sat on the floor of the bath for a long time crying.

She heard a knock on the door and her Pa called out to her, “Are you okay?”

“No...” she said just loud enough for him to hear.

“Can I come in?”

She hesitated and then pulled the towel off the lid of the toilet and covered herself, “Yeah.”

Paul opened the door to see his daughter huddled on the ground with only her towel wrapped around her. Her eyes were red from crying, she looked more defeated than he had ever seen her before.

“Am I cursed?” she whispered, “I think I must be.”

Paul closed the door behind him, “Why do think that?”

“Everyone I love dies.”

Paul sighed deeply as he lowered himself onto the side of the bath, “I don’t believe you’re cursed...”

“How can I not be? First my brother died, then my father, my mother, and now Dad.”

Paul really didn’t know what to say. The loss of his husband was hitting him harder than any loss previous. Daryl had been the first man he’d ever truly loved and now that he was gone, Paul wasn’t sure what to do next. How could he comfort his daughter when it felt like his world had just come to an end?

“Your brother and I are still here,” he tried to reassure her, but it didn’t really work.

“So which one of you am I going to lose next?” fresh tears forming in her eyes.

Paul reached down to her and helped her up onto the side of the bath so that he could pull her against him.

“I hope that you’ll lose neither of us anytime soon, but I won’t promise you anything. I think you know, better than most, that anything can happen. All we can do is our best to live and try not to think about the ‘what ifs’ of life.”

She cuddled against his chest as she listened to him speak.

“The ones we love, never really leave us. You can always find them,” he continued placing a hand over her heart, “in here. As long as you hold their memory close to your heart, they’ll never really be gone.”

“That’s what Dad told me before he fell. He promised me that he’d never really be gone as long as I held his memory close.”

That seemed to jog her memory and she stood up, pulling the towel tighter around her body. She walked over to the pile of her blood clothes and pulled out her father’s ring and necklace charms.

“I found these when I went down to get his knives,” she said holding them out to Paul.

Paul took them with shaky hands and almost choked when his husband’s wedding ring and favorite necklace charms fell into his hands. They were still stained by blood so Paul stood up and started to scrub them under hot water in the sink until they shone.

“I’m going to find some strips of leather and turn them all into necklaces,” Paul told her, “There’s one for each of us.”   
“Can I have the wings?” she asked.

Paul glanced over at her, “Yeah, of course.”

Judith smiled weakly at her Pa at his words.

“I’ve got to go, the team will be waiting on me. Thanks for telling me how to get there.”

He kissed her forehead, gathered up her clothes and left the bathroom.

* * *

Paul felt sick looking down at the body of his husband. The blood had finished drying, but the stench of flesh cooking in the sun was becoming quite strong. Flies were everywhere, buzzing around his husband’s body. He tried not to look too much at the body as the other runners pulled his iconic vest off of him. They wanted to try to preserve it instead of just letting it rot in the ground. They all worked together to roll the body up in a waterproof tarp and tied it up to keep anything from falling out on the drive back.

Everyone was silent the entire time out of respect for Paul as he watched his dead husband lifted into the back of the truck. He could feel tears making their way down his face, but he made no effort to stop them. He sat in the back of the truck on the way back to Hilltop not wanting to be too far away from his late husband.

Pulling into Hilltop, he could see that people had already started arriving for the funeral of one of their most beloved members. The runner to Oceanside wouldn’t even get there until tonight, so they still had to wait. It was mostly Alexandrians who’d already arrived which made sense because they were closest community to Hilltop.

Aaron was the first person to approach him after he got out of the truck. He said nothing, he just pulled him against him and held him close. Aaron’s heart when out to Paul having gone through this when Eric died. Gracie had saved him, so he hoped that Judith and RJ would be the thing that kept Paul from falling off the deep end.

Paul, Judith and RJ all worked together to dig a deep grave for Daryl right next to his family members. The blacksmith created a unique grave marker for the hunter, two arrows crossed to form the traditional cross marker. The steel would last longer than wood and they all agreed that Daryl deserved to be remembered. He wasn’t just a kind man, he was a war hero who’d saved many people in all of the communities at one time or another.

Paul had thought about waiting to bury him until everyone had arrived, but he didn’t want the body to start to smell, so he decided to bury him now and simply hold a ceremony to remember the hunter later. They carefully lowered his body into the grave and covered it back up as people from Alexandria and Hilltop looked on. The blacksmith helped them set the grave marker into the ground, making sure it was stable before leaving.

Paul cut some strips from some old faux leather and strung each of Daryl’s personal items onto them. He gave the crossbow charm to RJ who vowed to never take it off. He kept his husband’s wedding ring and he gave the wings to his daughter. Paul scrubbed as much of the blood out of Daryl’s vest as he could. The wing still has a rather red hue to it and some of the dried blood just didn’t want to come off of the leather and strings. He removed the old art out of one of the many display cases in Barrington house and placed them in the attic. In their place he hung the vest, wing out so that everyone could see it.

Over the next couple days, he kept finding Judith sitting in front of the vest and drawing and redrawing the wing on her notepad Daryl had gotten for her. He wasn’t entirely sure what she was up to, but he let her be. RJ spent an inordinate amount of time practicing with Daryl’s personal crossbow. He told Paul that he wouldn’t stop practicing until he is as good as his Dad was.

As soon as Oceanside had arrived, Hilltop held a ceremony during which they encouraged everyone who had a story or memory of Daryl to come forward and tell it.

A woman from Alexandria was the first person to come forward, “When I first saw Daryl, he was holding a dead possum and had been on the road with his family for weeks. He looked absolutely terrifying. He had this air of ‘don’t fuck with me or my family’ just radiating off of him. My son, Jacob, was only about five at the time and he was very curious about the newcomers. It only took about an hour for him to work up the courage to go up to one of them and he chose Daryl. I was scared about what was about to happen, but Daryl just bent down and started talking to him. He was so good with my children, something I never would’ve guessed from looking at him.”

Aaron told everyone about Daryl’s annoyingly selfless nature and determination by telling the story of when they got trapped in a car near a canning factory by the Wolves. Carol recalled how much he’d changed since she’d met him all the way back at the quarry recounting her first interaction with him versus her last.

Judith and RJ just kind of sat there listening to all the stories of their Dad being told. Some they had heard before, some they hadn’t. They listened intently to their Pa’s telling of the story of how he’d met Daryl and Rick for the first time. It had the entire group laughing as they pictured the stoic hunter chasing after his future husband in a field. There was a long stream of stories flowing around the communities and everyone listened as they remembered the hunter.

It would take a long time for them to heal from this massive loss, especially for Daryl’s family, but they would survive. It would be an insult to his memory to not do so.

***Epilogue ~ 5 years later***

Judith ducked out the way as her adversary struck out at her head. She wasted no time in wrapping her arms around his head and snapping his neck. She huffed out of the effort of taking down each member of a violent gang that had attempted to move into the area. They’d lasted for about a week before Hilltop had stuck out at them and pretty much annihilated them. She leaned over and picked up her crossbow, hefting it high as she stepped over the body of the man in front of her. She absentmindedly used one of her arrows to stab him in the end as she left.

It’s been almost five years since her Dad died. She wore the golden wings charm around her neck every day, just like her brother and Pa. She even had a leather vest like he did onto which she’d sown angel wings identical to his. It was her way of keeping him close just like how she always carried her father’s colt python even though she’s long since run out of bullets for it. She had a few braids in her hair in honor of her mother and, of course, she still wore the hat her brother had given her. Passed down from her father to Carl and then from Carl to her. It was a very important piece to her, just as much as the vest.

She’d been inspired to make the vest when Carol had told her something that has stuck with her all her life, “People like him never really die, they become a part of you. Your parents, all four of them, are legends and their memory will live on forever not only through you and RJ, but through their actions which helped form these very communities.”

She’d grown up to be a mix of all the people who’d raised her over her lifetime. She could fight like her Pa, hunt like her Dad, reason like her mother, and take charge like her father. All of that combined made her quite a force to be reckoned with. She and RJ are treated as somewhat celebrities in the communities since they’re the children of four of their most influential and important members.

RJ, now 20 years old, never hesitated to call Daryl Dad anymore after she'd told him what Daryl had said just before he died. RJ was being trained by Maggie to take over management of Hilltop. She’d been offered the job, but she had no desire to be trapped behind those walls dealing with land expansions and common disputes between community members. She took after her Dad and Pa in that regard while RJ took after their mother and father. He was much more interested in leading the community while she wanted to explore the world and protect people. She was a warrior and he was a leader, between them they have the best of both worlds. 

She wiped the blood off on her pants and made her way back to her Dad’s bike. She’d altered it to run on solar power, but otherwise it was exactly the way her Dad had left it. Pa often called her “mini Daryl” whenever he saw her riding his bike while wearing the vest she’d made. It made her Pa happy to see her keeping Dad so close to her.

She wanted to look at herself in the mirror and see all of the people she’d lost standing around her in the items she kept. Because, after all, real legends never die.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. <3


End file.
